{"paper":{"title":"The dominant role of mergers in the size evolution of massive early-type galaxies since z ~ 1","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"astro-ph.CO","authors_text":"A. Bongiorno, A. Cappi, A. Cimatti, A. Iovino, A. Koekemoer, A. Renzini, B. Garilli, C. Bridge, C. Knobel, C. K. Xu, C. L\\'opez-Sanjuan, C. Maier, C. M. Carollo, C. T. Liu, D. Sanders, D. Vergani, E. Le Floc'h, E. P\\'erez-Montero, E. Ricciardelli, E. Zucca, F. Lamareille, G. Coppa, G. Zamorani, H. Aussel, H. J. McCracken, J. D. Silverman, J.-F. Le Borgne, J.-P. Kneib, K. Caputi, K. Kova\\v{c}, K. Schawinski, L. A. M. Tasca, L. Barnes, L. de Ravel, L. Pozzetti, L. Tresse, M. Bolzonella, M. Mignoli, M. Moresco, M. Salvato, M. Scodeggio, M. Tanaka, N. Welikala, N. Z. Scoville, O. Cucciati, O. Ilbert, O. Le F\\`evre, P. Capak, P. Franzetti, P. Kampczyk, P. Nair, P. Oesch, R. Bordoloi, R. Pell\\'o, S. Bardelli, S. de la Torre, S. J. Lilly, T. Contini, V. Le Brun, V. Mainieri, V. Presotto, Y. Peng, Y. Taniguchi","submitted_at":"2012-02-21T15:36:18Z","abstract_excerpt":"In this paper we measure the merger fraction and rate, both minor and major, of massive early-type galaxies (M_star >= 10^11 M_Sun) in the COSMOS field, and study their role in mass and size evolution. We use the 30-band photometric catalogue in COSMOS, complemented with the spectroscopy of the zCOSMOS survey, to define close pairs with a separation 10h^-1 kpc <= r_p <= 30h-1 kpc and a relative velocity Delta v <= 500 km s^-1. We measure both major (stellar mass ratio mu = M_star,2/M_star,1 >= 1/4) and minor (1/10 <= mu < 1/4) merger fractions of massive galaxies, and study their dependence on"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"1202.4674","kind":"arxiv","version":2},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}